💭 Extended death dream 🎸 Taylor Swift conspiracy theory 📖 video game fan fic 🎮 the kids are not alright 👧🏼
🍭 👂 TRUST ME! 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour.
Today is Monday, January 15. In case this issue is too long…my favorite show is back, a cancelled comic is back (sort of) and this show is perfect for humongous podcast dorks like me.
xoxo lp
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Ferrill Gibbs & Abe Partridge
Ferrill Gibbs is a writer, podcast producer, songwriter, and co-creator of Alabama Astronaut and Marked for Life. Abe Partridge is a songwriter, visual artist, folk documentarian, and co-creator of Alabama Astronaut and Marked for Life.
Describe Marked for Life in 10 words or less.
FG: Cody Coots narrates about his rocky life performing The Signs.
Why are you making it?
FG: Since the release of Alabama Astronaut, people have approached us with a question: “Why would a person handle a snake in the name of God?” Cody's memoir illustrates this rationale and faith at a street-level. Books exist as to the “why” concerning this group, but this memoir-podcast illustrates the faith playing out in mundane life. Expanding on that, one compelling reason we took this project was because it’s the first of its kind in the group’s 130 year history! This is the first memoir ever written by a serpent handler about his serpent handling life.
Will there be a musical element this time?
FG: Absolutely! Cody Coots was, as he describes in the podcast, a “born drummer!” His position at church as drummer “particularly on the fast songs” illustrates his revered status in the church. He also sent us a songbook of 158 gospel songs he has written. (He told us that, in the event he dies, he would want his children to have a better understanding of who he was through his song lyrics. Many of these songs describe actual events that play out in the podcast.)
How is it related to the first show you made, Alabama Astronaut, which is one of my favorite shows, like, ever?
FG: We can’t thank you enough for that, Lauren! Cody was such a pivotal character in the series. It wasn’t so much we felt it crucial to elaborate on this storyline; it's just that Cody is one of the most ridiculed “Signs-followers” of our time. People call him all manner of disparaging names. But, if you look at the totality of who he is, Cody has now written a full-length book; composed over 190 songs; and, he's recorded a Nashville-produced record. So...Cody Coots is a creator! In this capacity, he can give the world a unique view of life as a serpent handler, not to mention life growing up in a community where mountains are torn to the ground by big business, and drugs and crime unravel fabric at the edges.
Can you talk about how you stumbled upon these stories?
FG: It was all Abe Partridge. Abe went to these churches during the pandemic, when his music career stalled from the lockdowns. Cody was one of the first people willing to be Abe's friend. Cody showed him everything. (Cody later admitted he was sure Abe was there to exploit and make fun of them, but that was not the case.) Ultimately, Cody got comfortable sharing with us a story you might find devastating, personal, and even sometimes damning regarding his life, behavior, failures, and triumphs.
What happens when you get bit in the head by a venomous snake?
FG: Great question. An entire chapter is dedicated to this one event. It's not pretty. It took a long time for Cody to recover from this bite. As he told us when he handed over the manuscript, he’s still not fully recovered. One doctor told him he might suffer the consequences of this bite for the rest of his life.
How will Marked for Life be similar, and how will it be different?
FG: Marked for life is an audiobook at heart, adapted for a podcast. With this, we hope the listener gets deep inside Middlesboro, Kentucky, and also, deep inside the lives of an extremely uncommon people. Mostly, we are curious to see if listeners ultimately view Cody and his friends as we do: human, with human rationale, trying to make sense of life in a post-modern time, embedded as they are in some of the most remote hollers of eastern Kentucky.
Fill in the blank: You will like Marked for Life if you like _______.
FG: Alabama Astronaut! Many of the characters Abe describes in Alabama Astronaut make appearances. Many of the stories become multi-dimensional to those who know the podcast well. And, fans will probably hear Alabama Astronaut differently once they spend time off Abe's shoulders, and immersed in the actual world of the Signs-followers.
What do you hope people get out of listening to Marked for Life?
FG: We can only hope others get what Abe and I (This is Ferrill!) have gotten out of it: perspective. If perspective comes at a premium at this world's frenetic pace, it might be easy to sum one group by one act, one mistake, or any one hill they may choose to lie on.
“These people hold rattlesnakes at church!!” is a statement that might make you feel better about yourself, and even worse about those people. But, if you allow yourself to wade into their stories – like the one Cody weaves for us in Marked for Life – you may understand that he is a person to be pitied, sometimes, or even revered at others! After this, you may turn your gaze to the larger, embattled world, and find it softens your view toward those whose stories remain untold.
Abe and I would love that.
AP: To elaborate on that, it has never been more imperative for us to try to understand people who are different than us. I hope that above all else, folks realize that if they could hear the background of someone like Cody Coots, and still find sympathies toward him, then perhaps they could also attempt to understand others with whom they may vehemently disagree. This is the remedy for a plague that's currently tearing at the social fabric of our society.
How has making these shows changed your life and faith?
FG: It’s absolutely the best work I’ve ever been part of (Ferrill). Every time I sit down to arrange something in these podcasts, it's like I'm fighting "misunderstanding." Even so, as you will hear in his podcast, this is absolutely Cody’s words! We have refused to commandeer his (or anyone else's) story to tell our own. But, that's what makes it beautiful – finding people in this group who are, more often than not, much like us. To me, it has been life-changing.
What’s something you learned about yourself making these shows?
FG: I learned a lot about podcasting itself! The power of the podcast. I have discovered that footage can actually sound terrible, but that a great story cuts through! A great story jumps off the tape – that's the real, precious commodity in podcasting – the story.
What’s something you have learned about memory?
FG: Well, that Abe has an extremely sharp one! (And mine is O.K.!) But, with everything you hear in Marked for Life – also, in Alabama Astronaut – we have been meticulously journalistic. (Sorry, Abe! – Abe hates being called “journalistic.”)
We have been extremely careful to be correct. If we can’t be correct, we won’t air it. So, working with Cody, who's yet another voice in the fold, we've had to cross-check everything he says with verifiable fact. It's been such a good time getting down to the bottom of his stories, learning more about his life, and more about the group.
If you could make another show…your budget is $1M, and don’t worry about any of the logistics or whether or not people will like it…what would it be?
FG: If I had $1,000,000? I'd throw it at Alabama Astronaut Season 2! I'd do more on-site work, and less cutting tape/post-production work. (Meaning, I’d hire an audio producer to drive absolutely bananas!)
What’s a podcast you love that everyone loves?
FG: I am old school – I loved Serial, Dr. Death, Up and Vanished – all those great ones in the "true-crime" genre.
What’s a podcast you love that not enough people know about?
AP: I really like The Working Songwriter, and Cocaine and Rhinestones.
Self-care ritual:
FG: Nightly bike rides
Hot take:
FG: We do better as a group each year than we give ourselves credit for.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
One of my favorite shows of all time, Imaginary Advice, has been dormant for awhile because…Ross had a baby! My spirits LIFTED when I saw a new episode in the feed. Ross tells two stories about a) gas poisoning and b) losing the boundary between real-life and imagination, which is exactly what Ross does best in this show. The piece is technically about the birth of his son and the path he and his wife took to conceive, but really, it’s a story about hallucinations and what happens when we lose our sense of what is real. (He made it funny.) It explores a moment in Ross’ mind, to quote Ross, when “the director of his life has been fired and replaced by David Lynch.” It’s a feverish, extended death dream, a look into the mind of a new dad. It’s a lesson in trusting our instincts when reality distorts, and living half in a dream half out. I think it gives clarity to move forward in life’s hurdles, like parenting. I think this is a parenting story in the way only the wildly creative Ross Sutherland can tell it.
hell yeah
🎙️Every year Arielle Nissenblatt collects people's Top Podcast Fun Facts...it's pretty much my favorite piece of media that comes out annually. It’s here, enjoy! (My contribution is something I learned about HOME ALONE from The Daily Zeitgeist.
🎙️Read my latest Lifehacker piece, 12 Daily Podcasts to Add to Your Routine.
🎙️My dream of all dreams came true when Cerca asked me to make a Disney World podcast. I wrote it and host it. It’s made for people planning a trip and full of really helpful tips about what to see, how to book tickets, and how to manage the confusing Genie + app. A few episodes are out…more to come! Listen here.
🎙️Sign up for my next Podcast Marketing 101 Radio Bootcamp here—it has been rescheduled to February 12, 2024.
🎙️I’m also teaching a Radio Bootcamp class on podcast monetizing for anybody on February 26 at noon ET. The class is capped at 12. Sign up here.
🎙️This season of Good People, Cool Things is launching its latest season on February 7 and will feature unusual entrepreneurs and creatives, including a Hollywood stunt pilot, the co-creator of Blue's Clues, and a magazine founder who highlights women storytellers in audio. Listen here.
🎙️Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted Ripple in her newsletter and podcast.
💎BTW💎
🎙️You might remember controversial shock jock host Chris Chatman (comedian Ike Barinholtz,) from his appearance of Say More with Dr? Sheila. Chris’ hit podcast was canceled, and now he has a new one, The Chris Chatman Do-Over, and in order to attract more female listeners, he’s brought on a woman co-host to help balance him and co-host the Professor out. It goes exactly as you’d imagine. Not good. This is eerily reminiscent of Neal Brennan’s first podcast, How Neal Feel, a podcast I did not listen to but received weekly summaries from my dad, who loved it. Neal had a woman co-host, Bianca-donk (I am not sure if that was her nickname on the show or just what my dad called her) and in hindsight, she was there to soften Neal up, but he kind of bulldozed her, anyway. (Neal actually has a pretty good show now, Blocks.) This improvised comedy show is as funny as Say More. Guest stars include Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Ashley Nicole Black, Jessica St. Clair, Ego Nwodim, Busy Philipps, and more. Listen here.
🎙️I listen to Commotion every single day—listening to it is one of my favorite parts of the day. Sure, that might be because I pair it with my daily ritual of eating a snack in goblin mode, on one leg, at my kitchen counter while I read podcast Reddit, but also it’s just so, so good. Elamin Abdelmahmoud goes through anything in the cultural zeitgeist with writers and cultural critics. If you miss Sam Sanders’ Into It, this is pretty close. Similar vibes. I could recommend an episode of Commotion every single week. An episode from last week is one I have been recommending over and over again, because a) it’s a wild story b) I didn’t see anyone talking about it, other than on BookTok, and c) the commentary was so mind-blowing that I have been quoting lines from it to everyone, fulling giving Commotion credit. (I don’t want anything to assume I’m smart enough to come up with analysis this sharp on my own.) It’s about Argylle, the spy thriller novel by unknown debut author “Elly Conway,” the novel that wasn’t promoted, didn’t have any review copies, yet already has been adapted into a $200 million film starring Dua Lipa, Henry Cavill, John Cena and Bryce Dallas Howard. It’s the novel that some conspiracy theorists (Swifties) think was authored by Taylor Swift. I don’t think it was, but I love that people think this, I love a good book scandal, I love lore, and I hope that this was written by AI to make a statement about the future of technology and publishing. (And again, that is a theory I heard on Commotion, not one I thought of myself.) Listen here.
🎙️Jon Ronson has made so many things I love—The Butterfly Effect, The Last Days of August, The Psycopath Test, and Things Fell Apart, the later which has a new 8-part season, all dropped in one day, however I don’t recommend bingeing and I’ll explain why in a sec. The first season was an incredible collection of stories that explored the origin stories of culture wars. Season two is also uncomfortable, even more so. It takes us back to the year 2020, a year we all remember for different reasons, almost all of them very bad. Jon takes events from that year—George Floyd’s murder, covid disinformation, Antifa, and explains how these stories got spun so wildly out of hand that they became so far from the truth at such a high volume that it doesn’t even matter that they aren’t the truth. Each story is part of the case that in new forms of digital media, the truth isn’t important, and it’s not what lasts. And that if you say something, anything, loudly enough, enough enough, it becomes the new truth. I say not to binge, like I did, because it’s a no-fun, constant reminder of one of the worst years we’ve had. I guess it could give you optimism about how in comparison, 2023 was not so bad. Or it could instill dread that all this that’s happened before will all happen again. For me, it was too soon to be reflecting on all of this. But it was smart, I kept listening. I was fascinated to know the history of excited delirium and how it went from explaining away the deaths of sex workers to justifying the murder of George Floyd. (That’s episode one.) These stories are brilliantly woven, eye-opening, and telling of huge movements and tiny moments at the exact same time. But go one at a time when you’re in the spirits to be pulled down a bit. Maybe it’s just me, but this was an unsettling, uncomfortable place for me to hang out in for four hours in a row. Listen here.
🎙️Short Cuts is a never-miss show for me. Each episode is full of short, beautiful documentaries produced by some of the best audio makers in the biz. A recent episode featured stories even shorter than usual (one from Talia Augustidis, who made one of my favorite pieces of 2023 for Lights Out.) It’s an audio art museum, quick visits to different exhibits for your ears, touching upon the beautiful harmony of celebrating the quirks and foilables between people, and a sonic representation of a 3-day-long grand mal migraine in three minutes. Host Josie Long is there as your guide, kind of like those headsets you wear when you’re lost in an art museum, so you truly appreciate everything. Listen here.
🎙️Each episode of the podcast Episode One is the first and only episode of a failed podcast, improvised by comedians. (One podcast was hosted by a trucker who interviewed hitchhikers he gave rides to, The FlexCast imagines a show where a bunch of douchebags are just flexing, Pixar’s Sodas is genius.) I love a podcast that plays on the idea of podcasts, and how these guys are able to test out the funniest (worst?) ideas for a show, without the stress of having to keep up the momentum. This is like an improv podcast buffet. Fill up your plate! Listen here.
🎙️Big Game Hunger starts with a random genre, concept, and vibe, and host Jenna Stoeber and friends craft a pitch for their dream game around it. If you like Let’s Make a… Rom-Com / Horror / Romance, you’ll love this impromptu creativity experiment that’s packed with lots of laughing and love for games. Because this is a podcast more interested in having fun than game development, the games probably won’t become a reality. (Unless there is truly a market for games about bisexual fishing, a therapist and a pokemon navigating the American healthcare system, or coming to terms with your dreams when your dreams are determined by prophecy.) It’s the nicheness that makes this more fun listening to people plan than it actually would be to play the game. I don’t even play video games but I love the storytelling that goes into them, and fanfic, which is something it feels like Big Game Hunger is. Listen here.
🎙️Stay Away from Matthew MaGill is kind of confusing, it’s two separate stories. One, host/reporter Eric Mennel finds a box that belonged to Matthew MaGill, a complicated, dead guy that nobody liked, and Eric’s investigation into the web he wove with everyone in his life, and why he was so disliked. The other story is about Eric’s tumultuous relationship with his parents and siblings. It was jarring to go from one to the other, but I found myself unable to stop listening. Every conversation felt too intimate for my ears to handle. It’s honest and produced in a way that feels so handmade that it’s underproduced, to the point it feels totally perfectly produced and lovely. It’s not shiny, and I say that as a compliment. It’s part weird investigation, looking into a box of items to solve a mystery about a strange person, and a perfectly frank conversation about a complicated family and one guy’s attempt to tape things back together. Listen here.
🎙️Each 5-minute episode of Kids Ask Dr. Friendtastic tackles a real question about friendship from kids (you get to hear their actual voices,) pairing them with advice from host Eileen Kennedy-Moore, PhD (Dr. Friendtastic,) an author and clinical psychologist based in Princeton, NJ. Friendship problems aren’t things that go away, so I find myself not just amused by the smart and specific questions (Gage, 9, is getting pushed around at recess…Ryan, 11, wonders what to do about peers who put down his interests) but clinging to Dr. Kennedy-Moore’s advice as a 40-year-old woman with adult friendships. Dr. Kennedy-Moore was made to do this, she exudes warmth and compassion. Listening to her talks makes me feel like I’m being cuddled by my mom (…whose only advice for friendship problems, no offense to my mom because it was good advice, was “roll your ryes and walk away.” This is a different approach.) Listening to these episodes gives you a look at what kids are struggling with today. To quote Dr. Kennedy-Moore when I spoke with her, “they are not alright.” Listen here.
🎙️Matt Lieb is one of my favorite comedians, I would listen to him talk about anything. (I love it when he is a guest on The Daily Zeitgeist.) I share this Lieb Love with Arielle Nissenblatt and I suspect that Arielle’s recent bingeing of The Sopranos was at least in part inspired by Matt’s podcast Pod Yourself a Gun, a Sopranos rewatch show that was originally a rewatch show for The Wire. Matt his hilarious and quick, and now the host of Bad Hasbara—The World’s Most Moral Podcast, which unravels the latest and greatest in US and Israeli propaganda. Matt is a secular, Jewish pro-Palestinian knowledgable about the anti-zionist Jews who show support for the Palestinian people in their struggle against an apartheid state and genocide. Bad Hasbara is gusty—but Matt “doesn’t have an agent” so he can take the risk of being so open about a very touchy topic. It’s also somehow smart and funny all at the same time. Don’t skip episode .5 (the very first one)…Matt explains how he arrived at this point in his beliefs (he came back from his birth right trip not convinced to move to Israel, but that birth right is a combination between a time share and a sex cult, and that genocide is really really bad.) He has great guests on that I know you’ll love (like Anna Hossnieh and Shereen Lani Younes to expand the conversation. Listen here.
🎙️You know I will listen to absolutely anything about the Donner Party. Against the Odds has an interview with ultra-runners Bob Crowley and Tim Twietmeyer, who mapped and retraced the path they think was taken by “Forlorn Hope” in 2020. It was an arduous, emotional journey, and for someone like me who has read about the trek so many times (I read The Indifferent Stars Above every January…it makes me feel cozy) it was fun to hear about it in a new way, through a modern lens. At the end I realized it was part of a scripted series about the Donner Party, but I didn’t love the rest of the episodes. Maybe it’s because it didn’t teach me anything new, but I think it’s because the scripting felt off. But still loved this final episode of the series. If you need to get brushed up on the Donner Party (trust me, the sexiest part of the story, the cannibalism, is also the least interesting) maybe listen to the whole thing. Listen here. Bonus: I was on an episode of Lizard People arguing that the Donner Party wasn’t starving and resorted to cannibalism earlier than necessary, something I am 85% serious about. Listen to that here.
🎙️I love you!
🏆 The International Women’s Podcast Awards awarded Eva Tenuto of The TMI Project Story Hour the Award For Changing The World One Moment At A Time.
📦 From the Archives 📦
Outside/In’s Ginko Love is an episode that readdresses an older Outside/In episode from 2016 about ginkos. The producers recently listened to it and found that they were horrified in the way they talked about it, and bring Felix Poon on to talk about how their insensitive reporting impacted him. So it’s a bold story about journalism and fixing the past, but also an amazing story about ginkos. My eyes were widening more and more as this episode progressed, to the point where I felt like my eyelids were going to peel back behind my skull.
Great interview with Gibbs and Partridge, I like how they talked about perspective.
Abe will return to the church within the decade.